A COURAGEOUS APOLOGY 14 YEAR LATERI was surprised to find the following email in my inbox:
Hello,
Long ago when I was a young teenager in middle school, I stole an UO counselor account of an internet friend and proceeded to kill a bunch of innocent people in Ultima Online by transporting them to jail and having them executed and having their goods taken. It was a pretty horrible thing to do and I wanted to apologize to the people I hurt. I was wondering if any of these people were still members of KGB or if I could personally speak to JetStar.
Kind Regards,
Matt
I remember this incident well and it is still in the KGB News Archives from 14 years ago. Here is information from the archives from that day, on the Pacific Shard of Ultima Online, June 10th, 1998 at about 3:00am in the morning:
KGB News Archives 1997 to 1999KGB News Archives are available from most of our history here on the Oracle. See the right had bar on the PORTAL PAGE and look for the KGB NEWS ARCHIVES link. HEADLINES for June 10th, 1998THE COUNSELOR NETHER INCIDENT
At about 3:00 a.m. (Saturday morning, June 6th) I received a call from Speedy of KGB, he said a Hacked Counselor had thrown him in Jail. We sent several ICQ messages back and forth about what was happening. I was shocked and in a state of disbelief. This was obviously after GM hours, so on page three of the HELP button, there is way to page a Counselor. When asked for the description I used, "HACKED COUNSELOR, please help". I was safe in my tower, with doors locked. I must admit I am ignorant about the powers that a Counselor possesses. in less than five minutes the very Counselor that I was warned about appeared in the second floor GuildStone room in my tower. My stomach immediately knotted up as I knew I was in trouble now. The counselor attempted to appear many times, each of these times I attempted to greet him formally as my journal shows:
You see: Counselor Nether
JetStar of KGB: hello
JetStar of KGB: Sie
JetStar of KGB: Sir
Nether: hello
Nether: KGP
JetStar of KGB: One of my guild members
You see: Counselor Nether
JetStar of KGB: hello
You see: Counselor Nether
JetStar of KGB: Sir?
Nether: I crashed
JetStar of KGB: are you there
JetStar of KGB: Oh I see
You see: Counselor Nether
JetStar of KGB: hello?
You see: Counselor Nether
JetStar of KGB: Hello?
You see: Counselor Nether
JetStar of KGB: I keep losing you
You see: Counselor Nether
JetStar of KGB: Hello?
You see: Counselor Nether
JetStar of KGB: Hello
Counselor Nether is transferring you to jailWhen he finally appeared he walked right on top of me and we both disappeared. I immediately appeared in what I have heard of as Jail. I looked around to see in the cell to the south of me was my GuildMate Speedy of KGB in combat with Hakim of DIE. Hakim had stolen Speedy's keys from him while in jail.
Counselor Nether went on to say: (quoted from actual Journal)
Nether: Suffer the wrath of Crash Overrid, hacked Counselor
You see: Counselor Nether
JetStar of KGB: You have hidden yourself well.
Not knowing if Nether could detect hidden or not I immediately hid. I looked in the cell to the north and saw Counselor Nether's death squad murdering innocents. you can see in the picture below, the two dressed in Black dresses and red sashes. I am hidden in the cell to the south. You can clearly see Nether witnessing the entire thing and the ghosts of the slaughtered begging in vain for the Counselor to stop the looting.
http://w3.the-kgb.com/kgbnewsa/news65c.jpg
I realized this was a set up. After the two had killed and looted several in the northern cell the Counselor and the two killers began to bow to each other over and over. Still hidden in the cell to the south, I used my All Names macro and was taking screen shots over and over.
I identified the cheaters as:
Nightrunner: [Holy Knight, PV]
SirAmherst: [Vindicator Primus, PV]
I spend most of my time watching this take place in the northern cell. In the southern cell Speedy of KGB was in a fight for his life and his equipment. Hakim of DIE had already stolen his keys and was now trying to kill Speedy for the rest of his equipment. Both Speedy and myself were safely (or so we thought) and carrying a full batch of Guild keys. I was carrying the Master KGB set. After things calmed down in the northern cell, Counselor Nether showed up in my cell again to say:
I knew this was a trap! He wanted to put me in a cell with his PV henchman so they could kill me and loot me. I refused and hid. less than 20 seconds later I crashed. It took me several attempts to get back in, I would say about 4 minutes total before I back in the game. I checked my pack, and my keys, runes, and
reagents were missing, taken or stolen somehow while I was crashed. I WAS FURIOUS! I was contacting everyone on my ICQ list begging for help. I have many friends in the game and sent repeated spam to them all (Sorry friends, I was desperate). Apparently my cries for help were heard by many. The editor of
UOVailt, Counselors from other shards, and many others.
By 6:30 am Counselor Greys arrived. The PV murderers and Counselor Nether had long since gone. The counselors were very vague about what would be done, I was given contact information for two GM's and and returned to Nujelm. At this point the KGB master key set, my master rune set, and about 80 to 100 of each reagent were missing.
CURRENT RESPONSE TO EMAIL AND AFTERMATH OF THAT DAYI wrote back and offered to post about this on the Oracle, and see if Speedy would again resurface to respond. I am sure some of you older vets remember this. We were able to get all out buildings redeeded (See a later post in the Archives) and this event slid from memory.
The aftermath of this was to end the UO Counselor program, which was a huge bummer to some. Many folks enjoyed their role as a Counselor and I think it brought a value add to the game and it's players. OSI decided they could not risk trusting non-employees with that kind of power.
I am glad to see Matt making amends to the folks that were wronged, especially after 14 years. Interesting stuff!
